lil toby: tsbo

First ever publicly available dip into Lil Toby’s hugely influential TSBO mix series, a 4 hour / double tape session of essential late 90’s early 2000’s Dancehall murder from one of the most pivotal operators/compilers/DJ’s on the underground scene - following his work bringing Mo Wax's genre-defining 'Now Thing' compilation to life in 2001 and appearances on some of the earliest mixtapes from The Trilogy Tapes back in 2008. The TSBO series was a precursor and testing ground to what became the 'Now Thing' compilation which Lil Toby co-complied with Toby Feltwell (Cav Empt) and Frenchie from Maximum Sound. The mixes consisted of that proto “Now Thing” sound from the late 90’s - early/mid-2000s, arguably the most future sounding period in Jamaican music. Rather than looking back, the TSBO mixes were made from brand new releases and pre-releases Toby copped at Blacker Dread and Dub Vendor - including things like Volume riddim (released in London prior to coming out in Jamaica). In this sense, the TSBO mixes are a time capsule of a hugely vibrant time on the streets/clubs of South London, clubs that Lil Toby was playing at regularly alongside the Honest Jons crew. There were 100 or so TSBO mixes made between 1999-2004, mostly recorded to minidisc and handed out to friends and sometimes played on pirate radio, with many of them copied, passed around and soon enough worming into the very fabric of London’s rich Dancehall culture. This 4 hour double set features Toby's personal favourite selections from the series, and is the first time any of them have been released. Alongside riddims that have since become rinsed classics, the set includes a ruck of material that was only ever available at Blacker Dread that have more or less been forgotten about in the years since; making it an important historical document selected and mixed by one of the original heads, but also the tightest, deadliest 4 hour dancehall session you’ll likely ever set your ears on.